The Gantt Report
If the James Gang has been accused of robbing a train do you think Frank James would be a good person to explain why Jesse James should not be arrested for robbery? Should any of the forty thieves be sought to comment on why Ali Baba should not be punished for stealing?
These questions come to my mind when so-called professional journalists are quick to report on comments by administrators hired by agency heads about actions taken or not taken in regard to hazing practices at Florida A&M University.
News reports suggest to me that university administrators are attempting to justify their actions in the aftermath of the death of a student band member by throwing former employees like FAMU band director Dr. Julian White and Police Chief Calvin Ross under the bus.
Now, I don’t personally know the current President of FAMU but I do know that administrators, students and employees at FAMU and everybody else in Tallahassee knows that hazing has occurred at FAMU and at most other college campuses across the United States.
In the business world, ignorance of wrong or criminal activity is not an excuse to suggest an executive officer should not be punished or replaced.
While people are running to the white media and offering this and that reason why the President and people hired by the President of FAMU should remain in their positions and maintain their very lofty pay checks, the thoughts, I think, should be about how can FAMU be made better and safer for students attending the institution?
The job of FAMU President is a great job but don’t kid yourself. Next to being a third string NFL quarterback, the best job you can get might be being an ex-university president.
Ex-presidents of universities in Florida still make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and do far less work. They may teach a class or two or head up some think tank or research group.
In light of everything that is happening or has happened perhaps FAMU needs a wide receiver, not on the football field but in the administration!
The appointment of a receiver is justified when property like a college in dispute or disarray is allowed to deteriorate to the extent where emergency staff or program repairs are necessary, and where there is good reason to suspect that the property is going to be sold, wasted, taken out of state, misused, or destroyed if the powers that be do not act to preserve it. A receiver can also be appointed in situations where it appears that no one with a legal right to manage certain property is present, or no mentally competent adult is entitled to hold it. A receiver is sometimes appointed to preserve property during litigation between two parties who appear to have an equal right to use the property but who are unwilling to acknowledge each other’s interest.
I think a wide receiver is necessary to clean everything up at Florida’s most prestigious predominately Black university. A man, or woman, that does not want to be or seek to be FAMU President can come to the highest of seven hills in Tallahassee and change policies, change procedures, fix the financing, fire incompetent staff and get the famed FAMU Marching 100 Band back on the field, back in the parades and back into the concert halls.
After that, a new President can be selected to come in and start to bring FAMU back to glory with a clean slate.
I’ve been writing columns long enough to know that any time you mention a Black school in a column you will be hated, denigrated, despised and told “you’re just mad because you want a job” there.
I can’t even go to sleep and dream that any college will hire an educated, experienced Black media professional that will teach students how to plead their own causes and tell the truth as they see it.
No, my friends in Tallahassee might not like this column but The Gantt Report has to write what is right whether my friends and neighbors like it or not.
If I didn’t like FAMU and didn’t think it was a good educational institution Lucius Gantt would never have allowed Lucius Gantt Junior to attend and graduate from there.
I love FAMU but I love the truth more!
